Crafting Calm: How Operators Can Thrive Even When the Market Tightens with Doug Cunningham

Rachel Stainton: It's easy to believe that growth comes naturally when times are booming, but what about when they're not? What happens when consumer sentiment dips, spending gets tighter, and the optimism that fuels expansion suddenly feels out of reach? In those moments, those already fine margins shrink, the fires get hotter, and that big ambition to grow can feel like a luxury you just can't afford. Because before anything else, you have to make sure that the business stays a business. Doug Cunningham: I think it is everybody's first reaction, is to turn around and, "Where can I start cutting costs and saving money?" When you create brand loyalty, it is easy to erode that if you actually start cutting costs and not figuring out if there's some other way to absorb those costs. Can I market it differently? Can I make other adjustments to save it or is it worth until that challenge changes just to absorb it in some other way? Rachel Stainton: It's hard enough when you're starting out or trying to scale, but when sentiment dips, it doesn't have to become a story of survival, it can be a moment to reset, make smarter choices, and build a steadier footing for what comes next. Still, there's no avoiding the hurdles you need to navigate along the way. Doug Cunningham: There's regulatory requirements, there's staffing, there's all this stuff, and it just starts getting chaotic on the back end. How do we take all this insanity on the finance side and make it into something that operators and departments or multi-units, the units into something they can actually make decisions with? Rachel Stainton: Our guest today is Doug Cunningham, founder of Crafted Ledgers and a CFO turned operator ally who spent more than a decade helping hospitality businesses turn financial chaos into something far more manageable. After stepping into Colorado's craft brewing scene, he helped build strategies for some of the region's most successful brands, expanding operations, strengthening teams, and streamlining systems so they could grow with clarity and confidence. I'm Rachel Stainton, and welcome to the new season of Science of Service, the podcast where we uncover the strategies behind building successful hospitality businesses. Whether you're a seasoned operator or just starting out, you'll find insights and inspiration to help you thrive. And if you're a brewery or a beer pub operation trying to balance rising costs, squeeze real efficiencies out the back or front of house, or finally get a handle on the financial data that actually matters, Doug, and this episode, have you covered. Plenty of great ideas have been born at a bar top and a lot of really questionable ones too, but thankfully for Doug, it was very much the former, as a casual night out with friends turned into an unexpected spark, one that opened the door to an entirely new chapter in his career. Doug Cunningham: I had been looking for a new job, and when you're looking for a new job and it's a Friday and you're getting ready to go out with some of your friends, what do you do? You kind of look on Facebook at that time of, where can we go get a beer? And so, we were looking and we were going to go to Denver Beer Company and hop onto their Facebook site and what do I see? Oh, hey, look, they're hiring for an accountant and controller. So I was like, "Well, this looks like it's right up my alley after 10, 15 years in the industry." So I applied for that job and went in for the interview and the two founders were like, "Yep, this is a good fit," all this other stuff, and was with them for 10 plus years, going from a single taproom location in downtown Denver and production facility, to 10 years later scaling to six direct-to-consumer hospitality locations. My background had not been coming into hospitality. I had worked in multiple different industries. I had actually worked in technology on the finance side. I had worked on construction, real estate, all different stuff, but I want to say probably the two jobs that I had that were actually not even on a finance or accounting positions that influenced me so much and love that kind of controlled chaos of hospitality, is my first job out of college was I rented cars for an enterprise rented car. If you remember the commercials or the guy in the suit driving around in the wrapped car, that was me. Rachel Stainton: Yeah, we'll pick you up. Doug Cunningham: Exactly, we'll pick you up. Rachel Stainton: Yeah. Doug Cunningham: I will tell you that was a very true statement. I drove over all of Northern Virginia, because that's where I was living at the time, and to be honest, they were not always the happiest customers, because enterprise target market was not the person going on vacation. It was the person who was, their car was in a body shop after an accident or wasn't working, so you definitely had to learn really good customer service to make them happy. And got a lot of experience from that, interacting with people in the service industry. I was an assistant store manager for a while, I was doing finance for a while, and then I was able to take a lot of those multiple experiences and be able to apply that on the finance side of a growing startup, early business, and it was fantastic. It framed a lot of where I kind of got to now. Rachel Stainton: Doug is passionate about beer and beer-making, because obviously it's beer, so why the hell wouldn't he be? But he's got a real passion for the industry too. A passion that grows out of his experience helping customers with their rentals and managing the day-to-day on the shop floor. In other words, he knows that for any business to be successful, the numbers have to be right, but the magic is in the service. And Doug learned that truth on the floor, not in the boardroom. These days he's bringing his passion, background, and CFO expertise to the wider industry. Using accounting solutions, strategic insights, and streamlined processes, his organization Crafted Ledgers is helping operators make sense of the financial chaos that comes with running multiple locations. In their own words, "They're turning financial chaos into crafted calm." Doug Cunningham: It was like, how do we take all this insanity on the finance side and make it into something that operators and departments, or multi-units, the units into something they can actually make decisions with? And I will say in probably the last six months, eight months, as I've kind of really ramped this up and started working with multiple operators, some with multiple locations, what I'm seeing more and realizing, that financial chaos isn't just from a financial standpoint. Some of these new operators, they're either just opening and everything is overwhelming to them. They come in, they have a great idea, "I'm going to make the best beer, I'm going to make the best burger or pizza," and then they start running the business. And there's regulatory requirements, there's staffing, there's all this stuff, and it just starts getting chaotic on the back end for them and they're losing a little bit of that dream or their vision, what they want to do, because they're in the weeds of everything else. The weeds is the perfect example. So it's like, how do you create something for them as a partner to allow them to have a little bit more calm in their day to be able to create what they actually got into this to create in the first place? So, that's why I love what I'm doing now, is because you can be that partner and stuff like that, but I don't look at it as just like, "Hey, here's the finance side." It's like, how does all this stuff fit in with the whole culture? And all this stuff kind of ties into together. Finance, culture, marketing, operator, all that stuff all have to be working together. And for me, I love the fact that I was actually able to work with everybody. I spent time behind the bar, I worked events out in the market. I had beer and put them on pallets to get sent out, ranch forklifts. You get all of it in that type of stuff and it helps you understand every piece of it. Rachel Stainton: Yeah, I know you've seen the industry shift a lot over the last decade. Doug Cunningham: Yeah. Rachel Stainton: What would you say has changed the most in terms of how people are running hospitality businesses today versus when you first started? Doug Cunningham: Specifically what we're seeing a lot of is the typical taproom is now having to become what you would classify almost as a brew pub, meaning that you can't just serve beer, you have to serve wine or cocktails, and specifically food. With customers changing what their expectations are, you need to provide more than just one thing now. Again, and it doesn't mean you have to change who you are, it doesn't mean you have to change your core concept. It's really, what else can you do to keep people around? Rachel Stainton: Yeah, where would you say that people are now choosing to spend more of their money on the operation side? Has that changed? Is it more R&D to figure out those trends to adapt and change? Or is there more stuff on the back end? Technology? Doug Cunningham: I definitely think it's technology. I think it's R&D too. Let's bring it back to what Denver Beer Company did. It was a very interesting concept, and actually, when I started, it was just a single taproom and we just served beer and we had food trucks. And then the first place we opened was, we knew based on regulations in the area that we couldn't have food trucks out front. So what do we wind up doing? Well, we expanded into our second location. We did a build-out. We determined we had to put something in that produced food on site. We knew our core competency wasn't actually restaurants at the time and running food. So we found a great partner that was running a pizza place, that was running a taco place, that was looking to expand into doing burgers and put an Airstream in the building, converted it into a standalone kitchen, and then allowed them to be the operators of that, so that we could provide everything, give customers that experience, have the food on site, but then work within our core competency. Rachel Stainton: Of course, shifting consumer behavior isn't just a hospitality issue, it's happening across every sector. But it hits harder here, because discretionary spending is, well, discretionary, and especially when everyone is already dealing with the rising costs of the basics of doing business. As Doug explains, when operators combine a clear understanding of guest behavior with strong systems and real financial insight, that's when they start to thrive. And partnerships play a huge part in that evolution. Working with food partners, tech providers, or specialized teams lets you lean on someone else's strength so you can focus on what you do best and deliver the kind of experience that guests keep coming back for. When consumer spending drops, the instinct is often to find efficiencies or cut back and fast. But Doug's view is that clarity should and can still come first, truly understanding where the pressure points are so you can adapt with intention, not panic. Because in this industry, success comes from being agile, not anxious, and from finding smart ways to stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Doug Cunningham: Well, I think one of the things that people wind up doing, and I think it is everybody's first reaction, is to turn around and, "Where can I start cutting costs and saving money?" But sometimes it can have a huge negative impact and you don't even realize it until maybe after. I mean, I think a perfect example from my time when I was at Denver Beer Company was related around to one of our best-selling products. We had seen or had been told from one of our vendors that the main ingredient was going to be going up 50 to 75%, all based on there was fires in the Northwest and this was a crop that was yield. And so, they were like, "We don't have a choice." And they were like, "We're going to be importing from overseas, and so we have to pass that cost along." So what we wound up doing is starting to figure out how we could revamp that recipe to actually cut costs. And that was, "Can we cut out the amount we're using, use substitutes, use flavoring instead of the actual real fruit that was going into that product?" And we made that decision and definitely saved a lot of money around it, or at least not have to absorb as much of that additional cost. But what we greatly saw with that was a drop in consumer reaction. I mean, we honestly had people that were coming up and this is completely different product. And it was one of our top sellers. It had gone from a seasonal to everybody was carrying it. It was one of the ones that was a flagship. We were known for it, we made those changes. And turned around, I had family members and friends and people in the market that were like, "What did you do differently?" And now they had said, "We're not going to purchase it anymore because it's just not the same." When you create brand loyalty, it is easy to erode that if you actually start cutting costs and not figuring out if there's some other way to absorb those costs. Whether it is, "Can I do something with a different product? Can I market it differently? Can I make other adjustments to save it? Or is it worth until that challenge changes just to absorb it in some other way?" So if you react too quickly, you actually might hurt your brand in the long run. Rachel Stainton: Being quick to respond is essential, but as Doug points out, it's more about how you respond. When operators make changes that compromise what guests already love, even with the best intentions, the cost can ultimately be far greater. It's a reminder that adaptation has to be thoughtful, grounded in data, guest feedback, and a clear sense of what makes your brand, your brand. Ultimately, that means there's no easy answer when it comes to finding the right efficiencies, but how do you find a win that means less, or even better, no pain to your guests? Doug Cunningham: As you move into multi-locations, your challenges grow up not just by one, they grow exponentially. So one of the hardest things is to figure out, how do you provide information and make decisions that go across all of those locations? So, what we wound up developing is a system of KPIs to a weekly dashboard for our general managers at each location so that they could make decisions quickly in terms of price modification, or... The example being is, our Downing Street location, our general manager was there looking at this stuff and we're like, "Why is our food cost so high?" We had a target of 27% roughly, and we started running stuff on weekly, monthly basis and we're going, "It's 30%, what's going on?" And that's a big number on a two plus million dollar location that's doing that out. Rachel Stainton: Oh, yeah. Doug Cunningham: And what we came to realize was that the original chef of the location, when he built out his recipe, said that the burgers, which was our biggest thing, we would do single and double patties, and all the stuff was using actually Wagyu, and it was not priced as if you were providing somebody a Wagyu burger. And so, what we wound up looking at is finding ways of looking at what was driving our costs to make sure that we were priced appropriately, as well as then make adjustments within those food costs or beer costs or whatever stuff we were doing to bring that in. And within six weeks, eight weeks, as we started doing that, we are back down towards our target and we're seeing that as an absolute win without having to change customer experience from the staffing perspective, or raising prices, which in this environment could very easily drive people away, because they're looking for the best bargains right now. Not bargains, but they're looking for the best value for their value. Rachel Stainton: Value, yeah. Are there any mistakes you've seen that operators make kind of initially that you think really ends up hurting them in the long run when they're trying to cut costs or trying to tighten things up? Doug Cunningham: They cut the wrong things. And by that I mean, so now running Crafted Ledgers, which is great, I'm working with somebody who is in that exact situation. They're like, "We're seeing costs rising, all this other stuff, and where do we start cutting?" It's like, first off is, "How can we cut staffing?" And one of the problems with cutting a lot of staffing is you're now changing your guest experience. And if you're known for your guest experience, people are going to notice and do they want to come back? Or we need to cut marketing, so he's like, "I'm going to cut marketing 100%." I'm like, "Well, what does that do for you? How do people still continue to know to come to your places? Is there other things you can do? We're looking at, who are your suppliers? Have we talked to your partners for cost savings from vendors for your ingredients, for whichever, your landlords?" A lot of the landlords are willing to work through stuff, but people are cutting in the wrong places because it's the easy wins, but the problem turns a lot of those easy ones to actually hurt you and your growth in the long-term. Rachel Stainton: If you're in the business of growing a business, you probably know firsthand that bigger almost always means messier, which is all the more reason to make sure your data is solid and the people making decisions have real clarity from the jump. And look, we've all been there. You skim a report, you promise yourself you'll dig into that finance spreadsheet tomorrow, and then tomorrow gets completely derailed by whatever fire needs putting out ASAP. That's exactly why Doug invests in another tool, education. Not as an afterthought, but as a way to build the confidence, perspective, and capabilities needed to make better decisions as the business scales. Doug Cunningham: Well, one of the things that I love about this is, I don't just look at myself as ever been that numbers person like, "Hey, I'm going to give you your profit and loss statement," or, "Here's what's going on." I think part of my job, and it has always been part of my job and it's just part of what's in my DNA, is an educator. So for me, what I try to do is, with these numbers or dashboards or coming up with this, is also kind of explain to them why it means and why it's important. Why is your food costs important to what you're doing? Why is this something you should look in your beer costs, your revenue per labor hour of what your staff is doing? It's like these are the things that are important, but this is that chaos. There's all these pieces that are going on, and if you can provide this information to them, but also explain the information on why it's important, it's huge. How does it fit in with what we're trying to accomplish from a mission, vision, values, all that type of stuff? I'll tell you this one story real quick. It was actually a wonderful thing. I have a relatively new business I'm working with in the hospitality, they were feeling so overwhelmed. We talked about they're now doing payroll, I'm doing all this other type of stuff. We got through it, I got them understanding, they understand why they were doing it. At the end of the day, we got done with our last meeting, they were like, "Can I give you a hug?" Because all of a sudden they felt that weight. They understood why this was important. And it's one of those things where not only does that make me feel like I'm happy for them, it's like, "Oh, yeah, I've done my job as somebody who's supporting." I'm now their partner, I'm one who's wanting to help them succeed and they feel that weight and feel that value and that's one of the important things for me. Rachel Stainton: The best data is the data you can actually use, the kind that helps you make clearer, faster decisions. But that starts with knowing what information really matters for your operation and having systems that surface it without drowning you in noise. And there are never enough hours in the day, right? That's why great reporting and intuitive dashboards are so valuable, helping to cut through the chaos and give operators clarity, confidence, and a sense of control. It's also why partners like Crafted Ledgers make such an impact. They don't just hand over numbers, they help translate them into actions, which brings us to another piece of the puzzle, the tech stack. The systems that are supposed to make operators' lives easier, and sometimes unfortunately end up doing the exact opposite. So how does Doug think about tech so that it actually helps move the needle? Doug Cunningham: So I don't think there's a one solution that fits all. So when I was at Denver Beer Company, we did at least two, if not three full tech stack evaluations, from point of sale, inventory management. Because we were producing our own beer, we had a brewery management system, we had a scheduling software, and all that stuff fed back into QuickBooks online. And one of the things that we realized is that as we were going into multi-units and we got out of two or three, we realized some of those technologies didn't fit, because we had created workarounds for what those technologies' limitations were. And at two locations you could do those workarounds. You get to four, five, six, your workarounds are taking more time than what they actually should. And so, I think one of the smartest things that we ever did actually was in our last tech stack review about two years ago. We started with, who are we ultimately trying to solve our technology problems for and where do we want to start? And as a hospitality, as a direct-to-consumer, who's the first touch point? The first touch point is the customer. We had people that were coming up to the bar and just ordering directly. We had people that were going to an outside food truck and ordering stuff. We had direct table service and we had hybrids. So you had to find a system that actually would work with all of those. And we wound up saying, "Okay, once we figure out what can meet all those needs, then what does that system work with of these other pieces? What scheduling software feeds into it, or does it have its own? Well, how does an inventory management system like MarginEdge fit into it, or does it have its own?" And figuring out how that works. Because for me, at the end of the day, as the CFO of the company, I can get the data I need out of any of these at the end, because they're all going to feed into it. What I need to do is make sure that the people that are the end users, my servers, our staff, our production people are getting a system that works best for them that makes their lives easier. Rachel Stainton: And I mean, I feel like that kind of ties back to what you were saying before about educating people as well, finding tech platforms or a tech stack that not only is easy for your store level team members to figure out, but they can learn from it, they can understand the why from it too, so that builds in sustainability. Doug Cunningham: When we were doing our last evaluation and looking at our point of sale, is we brought all over our GMs in the room and we actually worked with them to figure out which one they thought would work better. It's very easy from the top to say, "Hey, this is the one I think he's going to use." And I'll tell you, I had to check my ego, because the one that I think we ultimately went with was not my first choice on the list, but I wasn't the one that was going to be using it. But you know what that also creates? Is that buy-in. If you have a piece of technology that you give to a unit or a location and they just feel it's being forced down on their hands, they're less likely to adopt it or less likely to give you feedback. So the nightmare scenario, we basically launched it on a Monday. As we ramped up through the rest of the week, our systems couldn't handle what was going on. We had tickets that were not processed. You get drink tickets or kitchen tickets that were backing up, then all of a sudden the kitchen printer spat out 10 in one time. And so, the kitchen is trying to figure out what's going on. But you know what? Because the general managers and the teams were involved in the decisions, they were actually looking to figure out how they could find a solution for the problem versus, "Look, see. Look what they gave us. Look, it was a piece of junk and we had no information to it." So they were willing to help through the adaption. They probably spent more time trying to figure out if they could make it work because they were invested actually in the initial process of picking it. Rachel Stainton: Say somebody is at that 20 plus, 50 plus and they can't necessarily get all their GMs in one room to decide on this, are there any other ways, any other tools that you've seen work to get anybody who's reluctant to get that buy-in, to get them on board with changing things? Because it's very difficult to do. Doug Cunningham: Right. I think it comes back to that education with the why you're doing it. They may not be in the decision, but I think part of it is explaining to a lot of the teams across, no matter the size, of how this is going to make their lives easier. And that's where the right partner comes in. Somebody who's not just going to be supporting you where you are at corporate or whatever you want to call it. When we were about ready to open Arizona, which was going to be our first one, as we used to choke off campus because it was out of the state, they had a local rep there to make sure it all went smooth and have people have that. So technology is hard, change is hard for anybody. It's a lot of conversations, and hopefully that they're on board with it. Rachel Stainton: And I know I've heard many times that having a good GM is really the key to making any location successful. And you've mentioned before you want to instill the feeling of ownership in GMs, how to get them to think more like owners. What are the first steps that you would take to building that kind of culture? Doug Cunningham: It's something that I've talked about with my clients. When you go ahead and build out a financial plan or a pro forma for a location, a lot of times what happens is you're sitting in an office and you looked at what they did last year and you're saying, "Hey, GM, here's what I expect you to do this year." Six months from now they're 20% less than what's going on, and you're like, "Why are you 20% less than the budget I gave you?" And they're like, "Well, I had no input. I could have told you this if you had brought me into this process." So one of those culture shifts that we did is that when we were looking at coming into '23 and '24 is we provided our general managers two years of history of what happened at their location and said, "Okay, what do you think is going to happen next year? Let's have you be involved in this process." And it created a truly ownership of them of what went in their boat, because then you could say to them, "Well, you missed this number and it was the one you thought. Do you know what happened?" And guess what? They have a lot more understanding of actually why it didn't work. Also, they can see when stuff breaks. And if you give them that power of, "Hey, I need to go fix stuff. I don't want to run it up the chain to five people, I'm just going to make the call." And if they do something incorrectly, I think the other big piece of this is not reprimanding in a bad way. It's that idea of this becomes a coaching opportunity of, "Okay, I understand why you made this decision. I understand why you went out and spent $4,000 on an oven repair because it needed to get done, but we could have done it this way. Or here's another way, so when it happens in the future, that you have an idea." And not only does it allow them to have that ownership, they understand how to do this and it makes them better in their next opportunity going forward. Rachel Stainton: Tech stacks can be a blessing or a burden, and Doug has lived both sides of that. He's seen that the tools really only work when they're aligned with how the business actually runs, not how the software thinks it should run. That's where the right partners make all the difference, helping operators avoid the usual growing pains and turning a messy pile of platforms into a system that genuinely supports the team. And Doug's point about bringing GMs into the process is crucial, because buy-in doesn't come from a memo or a text, it comes from a seat at the table. When leaders on the ground help shape the tools that they rely on every day, they take real ownership, solve problems faster, and elevate the guest experience in ways no dashboard ever could. That kind of shared responsibility is what keeps a business growing in line with its mission, even as the operation becomes more complex. So, time for one final piece of advice. Let's say you have everything in place. You've tested the tech and successfully implemented. Congratulations, you've earned yourself a few beers, at least on that. Training has been updated and you've fostered a true culture of ownership. You've even got great data and know exactly what to do with it. The next thing on your list is drive efficiency. What's the advice here? Should you focus on the systems, your people, or maybe their mindsets? Doug Cunningham: I think all of them kind of tie together. And the perfect example, the way I always talk about this is that we had our systems so well-integrated, I was able to basically manage my seven locations, six, with roughly one main accountant on my team who built out the dashboards and stuff, because we were able to create that efficiencies where they all would be able to talk to each other and be able to get that information on a timely basis, but also training the teams on how to use them. Because yeah, we're sending stuff out, but there's stuff they need to know sooner. The other issue is that from an operator standpoint, there's a lot of this situation where you're like, "I can't afford to bring somebody in to do a lot of this stuff for me." And if you can use something that actually will allow you to make these decisions or make it run smoother for you as a solo individual or even multi, it's huge for you to actually be able to run efficiently. Rachel Stainton: Yeah, you get what you pay for kind of. Doug Cunningham: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because you can't. You hire a bookkeeper and you're like, "Oh, my gosh, this is going to cost me how much a month? I can't afford that. My margins are so thin." So can I create a system in place, a process in place, a report that will allow me to make these decisions on my own? Because I know what's going on in my business better than this person who I hire who's only maybe... Most bookkeepers aren't on site, they've got five other, six other clients, and they're not as invested in what's going on in your business, you are. So how do you create something that allows you who are invested to make the decisions you need to make? Rachel Stainton: All right, final question. Doug Cunningham: Okay. Rachel Stainton: You've built a business around finding the crafted calm in the chaos. Doug Cunningham: Yes. Rachel Stainton: What is your secret? Is it meditation, extra strong coffee, color-coded spreadsheets? What's your secret? Doug Cunningham: Oh, I guess the simple answer is that I drink a lot of beer when I'm in my downtime, but I guess I've been lucky to work with amazing partners throughout my career. I've learned a lot of tricks. I had to figure out ways of making life more efficient for our business, and that's kind of what I've done for myself. And what I love now is being able to take those and give them to other people to be able to create and stuff like that. But yeah, I do meditate, is one of those things I learned, was actually helpful. And being here in Colorado, we've got a lot of wonderful, beautiful outdoors. So I get out to calm my brain on a regular basis so that I can come back and help all these operators that are looking to continue to grow and make what they want to make for everybody out there. Rachel Stainton: Finding that crafted calm isn't easy, but Doug reminds us it's absolutely possible. Whether it's building systems that talk to each other, empowering general managers to think like owners, or carving out the headspace to make better decisions, it all adds up to running a business with more intention and a lot less overwhelming chaos. Huge thanks to Doug Cunningham for joining us and for giving operators everywhere a little more clarity. If you need a recap on today's insights or want to learn more about how Doug is helping to create the conditions that allows great service to thrive, hop on over to the show notes. Come on, you knew I had to throw at least one beer pun in here. I'm Rachel Stainton, and if you enjoyed this episode of Science of Service, please rate, review, and subscribe. And if you know another operator who has already tried beer and meditation, but is still hungry for smarter systems, clearer data, or just a little bit of inspiration, send this episode their way. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.